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Top 10: Boyhood is Linda Barnard's favourite movie of 2014.

Relationships of every variety weave through the films that topped my choices for the best of 2014, movies that I found moving and entertaining in very different ways.

Certainly, they are the beating heart of
Boyhood
, a remarkable film that is as much about women and girls and their life changes over 12 years as it is the boy at the centre of the story.

Ellar Coltrane stars in the film Boyhood, which tracks a young boy's life over 12 years.

The Grand Budapest Hotel
turns on the various relationships of wily and wise concierge M. Gustave with his devoted Lobby Boy apprentice, lovesick frequent guest, Madame D., and the mysterious brotherhood of those who make things happen behind the registration desk of grand hotels.

Whether it’s a father’s reluctance to admit, even to himself, he abandoned his family during a moment of panic (
Force Majeure
), a creepily intimate look at a deeply flawed marriage (
Gone Girl
), or a naïve young woman who finds a terrible family secret through a reunion with her estranged aunt (
Ida
) filmmakers let us root around the shadowy places of others’ relationships.

And for pure, girl power joy, look no further than
We Are the Best
! and its delightful exploration of young teen friendship, empowerment and the first flush of something like love.

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Tell us

1. Boyhood

Writer-director Richard Linklater invites us to witness Mason (newcomer Ellar Coltrane) go from age 5 to 18 in 165 minutes, moving from awkward child to questioning, yet self-assured adult. His parents, played by Patricia Arquette (outstanding in this role) and Ethan Hawke also age and change over 12 years as they navigate their marriage, breakup and new lives as individuals. Powerful, emotional and honest, this experiment in fiction filmmaking will likely never be duplicated.

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson’s most audience friendly and accessible film to date pleases both loyal fans and newcomers alike with its quirky charms, wonderful performances (especially Ralph Fiennes in one of his best roles) and a delightful visual style. A cinematic confection and the icing on this cake is Anderson’s clever and engaging dialogue.

(Daniel McFadden)

3. Whiplash

You can’t take your eyes off J.K. Simmons as Fletcher, the belittling bully who conducts the marquee jazz band at a Manhattan music school. Miles Teller is the teen who says he will endure any trial to earn the spot of core drummer, desperate to live up to the impossible standards set by the often-furious, mind-game-playing Fletcher, who hisses: “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job.’”

(Atsushi Nishijima)

4. Selma

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Opening Jan. 9 (we go by Oscar’s calendar), director Ava DuVernay’s
Selma
is the whole package: well written, gripping, filled with genuine emotion and visually stunning, with a superb cast led by David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Set in the months leading up to the 1965 Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches when black Americans were prevented from voting by a system determined to oppress, it acts as a powerful, tension-filled history lesson. Yet it is also a story of a marriage, presenting King as a complex and occasionally flawed man.

5. Snowpiercer

Joon-ho Bong’s
Snowpiercer
was an unexpected pleasure and far more than its postapocalyptic sci-fi premise suggested: class revolution aboard a supertrain filled with survivors of a botched global warming experiment endlessly circling a frozen world. The haves get the goodies, the have-nots get the shaft — and weird, wobbly gel blocks to eat. Chris Evans leads the charge for a new order but has to deal with Tilda Swinton, sublime as oddball Dr. Strangelove-like bureaucratic toady Minister Mason.

(Merrick Morton)

6. Gone Girl

Gone Girl
worked so well as a cracking good psychological thriller largely because Gillian Flynn, who wrote the bestseller, also penned the screenplay. David Fincher, who does twisted psyches onscreen like few others, makes this a delightful descent, aided by Ben Affleck as a maybe-murderous husband you just can’t make your mind up about and ice cream-cool Rosamund Pike as his missing wife, Amazing Amy.

7. Force Majeure

The Swedish drama that launched a thousand debates — and likely a few arguments. What would you do in the seconds when an avalanche rushes down a mountain towards you? A father’s reaction in a panicked moment, at first denied, has far-reaching consequences and leads to a movie we can’t stop talking about.

8. Ida

Pawel Pawlikowski’s moodily effective black-and-white examination of family secrets centres on Anna, a young woman preparing to become a nun in 1960s Poland. Superb performances from Agata Trzebuchowska as the naïve Anna and Agata Kulesza as her bitter aunt, a hard-drinking judge whose revelations change Anna in ways she could never have foreseen.

9. We Are The Best!

A joyous salute to the revolutionary spirit embodied in three delightful 13-year-old Swedish schoolgirls who find their voices by forming a punk band — even if musicianship eludes two of them. Smart, funny and real, an honest peek into the secret lives of girls. Earnest and political, tomboyish Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) stole my heart.

(Sandro Kopp)

10. Only Lovers Left Alive

More style than substance but what style from Jim Jarmusch about a sexy-cool vampire couple (Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston) who have been together for centuries and now hole up in a rotting mansion in decaying Detroit. He’s a tormented rock musician; she holds the secrets of arts and letters from the ages. It’s all gloom and angst, just the way the like it, until her bratty sister (Mia Wasikowska) shows up.

Ten more worth noting
(in alphabetical order):
A Most Violent
Year (opens Jan. 30)
, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance), Foxcatcher, Guardians of the Galaxy, Life Itself, Mr. Turner (opens this week), Nightcrawler, The LEGO Movie, The Imitation Game, The Skeleton Twins.

Most underrated film
:
Edge of Tomorrow (Live Die Repeat)
: Tom Cruise (actually looking scared half the time) and tough-as-nails smartie Emily Blunt made the most enjoyable action movie of the year with this time-twisting thriller about the drive to outsmart off-world enemies who can read soldier’s minds, forcing Cruise to “die” over and over in an effort to learn how to outfox the killing machine.

Most disappointing:
Interstellar:
Not everybody left the theatre as I did: confused and with the feeling I’d been had by Christopher Nolan, a director whose movies I usually rate highly. Matthew McConaughey sounds like’s he’s doing an aw-shucks parody of himself and the plot line with Anne Hathaway’s scientist Brand is annoyingly sexist. Some critics are putting
Interstellar
on their top 10 lists. Further proof how you feel about a movie is a very subjective business. Or maybe I’m still not over
Transcendence
.

Worst movie
:
Left Behind
: Nicolas Cage as an adulterous pilot obviously not invited on the Biblical Rapture who is left behind to try to land a planeload of sinners while the world burns below. A giant, lumbering turkey — which seems rather fitting, given the season.

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